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ABC chairman admits biased and ‘misleading’ story about transgender women in sports who failed to mention they retain physical advantages over female athletes
- Ita Buttrose said article about trans women in sport had ‘serious editorial errors’
- ABC apologized for failing to notice that trans women can maintain physical benefits
- The apology was in response to Liberal Senator Claire Chandler’s complaint
- The article was originally published in April, but has since been corrected
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The ABC chairman has admitted that “serious editorial errors” were made in a story about transgender women in sports.
The now-corrected online article was the subject of a complaint from Liberal Senator Claire Chandler for failing to mention that trans women retain physical advantages over female athletes.
An internal ABC review also found the article “materially misleading” and contrary to the broadcaster’s impartiality standards.
Chairman Ita Buttrose wrote to Ms Chandler after the review and said the ABC would hold a “thorough debriefing” with all concerned, the Daily Telegram reported.
Ita Buttrose – chairman of the ABC – has admitted “serious editorial errors” were made in a story about a scientific take on trans women in sports that failed to mention that “trans women can maintain physical benefits”
The original story was published in April and was presented as a scientific take on whether trans women retained biological advantages over other women.
After numerous complaints and an internal review, the article was edited with research showing that trans women in the U.S. Air Force ran an average of 12 percent faster than biological women.
Liberal Senator Ms. Chandler demanded an explanation from Ms. Buttrose about how the editorial shortcomings were possible and why the journalist had not asked for the opinions of female athletes.
“I suggest that this series of errors and violations of norms could only have occurred in circumstances where the author wanted to make a pre-determined case, selected interviewees to support their own point of view, and deliberately omitted relevant facts showing that there is substantial evidence that trans women retained performance benefits due to male puberty,” Ms Chandler wrote in a letter to the ABC.
Ms Buttrose responds: ‘The editorial gaps in the original story are certainly regrettable’.
“These are indeed serious editorial errors and have been treated as such by the ABC Sport team and the journalists responsible for producing the story.
‘There has been a thorough debriefing with all involved.’
The online article was found to be ‘materially misleading’ by an internal review for failing to mention that ‘trans women can maintain physical benefits’ in sports